Roma! (Day 1)

After Florence and Venice, we decided a few days in Rome would be nice.. That and out flight back to Sardinia was leaving from Rome the next day..

We took the train from Florence to Rome.. Someone could barely keep his eyes open!

First stop after checking in at the hotel was the Colosseum..

Then, down to the top of the Piazza de Spagna (Spanish Steps). The first picture is looking up and the second is looking down.

We stopped at the top to take a few pictures of this fountain..

Then over to the Mausoleum of Augustus. It was built in 28 BCE. For you watchers of the HBO Series- Rome.. He was Octavian who then became the heir of Caesar and took the name Augustus..

A stopover at the Trevi Fountain..

Then off to the side was a street performer who just looked amazingly like a statue. I gave him a few euros to take a photo and he tried to grope me!

Over to the Pantheon-

Piazza Navona--

It is built on the site of the Stadium of Domitian, built in 1st century AD, and follows the form of the open space of the stadium. It was defined as a public space in the last years of 15th century.

Campo di Fiori and the statue of Giordano Bruno.

Why is Signor Bruno so important? 

He was born in 1548 and died, here on this spot in 1600. A Heretic. He was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings. He was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy for his pantheism and turned him over to the state, which at that time considered heresy illegal. After his death he gained considerable fame, particularly among 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who, focusing on his astronomical beliefs, regarded him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas.

"Il Vittoriano" aka- The Wedding Cake

The Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II-- It is a monument built to honor Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy, located in Rome, Italy. It occupies a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. The monument was designed by Giuseppe Sacconi in 1885; sculpture for it was parceled out to established sculptors all over Italy, such as Leonardo Bistolfi and Angelo Zanelli. It was inaugurated in 1911 and completed in 1935.